Thoughts for another day

Aug. 31, 2009

Today's verse: Ps. 19:13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. (KJV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

Here is a prayer of David in the psalm, where he asks the Lord to keep him from willful sins. David as you know, understood God probably more than anyone else in the Old Testament and one thing he clearly knew is that sin could be a dreadful block to God. And David also knew that with sin, the blessings of God were blocked in his life.

Like David, we too need to know that it’s our sins that keep us away from God’s immense blessings and inhibit His power in our lives. One may ask, why does sin block God’s power? Though difficult to answer from the human perspective, I’d say that the purity of God doesn’t allow the stain of sin to come anywhere close to it. Sin is also offensive to God and He doesn’t cast His glance at any sin. When this happens in your life, it is anathema for God to look at you and therefore your prayer remains unanswered.

Hence, we too must pray that God keep us away from sins which are so predominant in our lives as to seem to be no sin. In fact, sometimes we feel that by committing a certain kind of sin, we are doing good to the person at whom it is aimed, but is it really? I’d rather say that the purity of our hearts is stained when we malign someone, even if in some way we want that person to change; unless it is done in secret and in love. Our worst offenses are those that we don’t mind committing because we’re so used to it like for example lying or talking ill about others or rumor mongering.

My brothers and sisters, let us, approaching the throne of Grace refrain from doing that which hurts our Lord, so that when we look up to Him we can behold the joy in His eyes; then we can rest assured that our prayers will be answered.